


FEAR and LOATHING and STUCK

by Broba



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:29:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Huh, I'm really surprised I am posting this second- I thought this story came later on. I consider it the beginning of my most experimental phase. Like all of them it was a kinkmeme request and from what I gather the requester never seriously thought anyone would do it- which is just catnip to me!</p>
<p>On a drug crazed gonzo expedition to Vegas, a journalist and his trusty attorney must make sense of the hallucinogenic nightmare they find themselves in....</p>
            </blockquote>





	FEAR and LOATHING and STUCK

I awoke immediately to the sound of wind chimes, and sat up in what was remaining of the bed. I was in a hotel room that was for sure, I could tell from the quality of the room, but beyond this nothing could be stated with any kind of a certainty any more. The floor was ankle deep in water, and for some reason my attorney was striding across the room in his undershorts, sporting a prosthetic alligator tail fastened to his back. I knew that this would be a challenging day for us both.

I pulled on my tea-shades to render the scene more amenable to my temperament and pressed a hand over my heart. I heard it going nak-nak-nak under my skin. I could not deal adequately with this now, matters had brought themselves to an impasse. Unable to progress, nor to retreat as I could not go back to sleep after what I had just seen. I called out to my attorney for help, and assurance.

"You inflatable bastard help me! I can't stand! Bring me some wine!"

He stared at me for a moment with those damn black sunglasses, black like the inside of your ear. I knew I was not getting through to him in this way but I could not stop myself. We screamed, together, until we had reclaimed something of our humanity. I demanded to know where we were.

"It's Vegas, dude." He span around and his plastic tail flicked water all over me, my blankets were little protection. "All of Vegas." I have never seen him be less then cool about these little announcements he makes, a deficiency of his Texan upbringing no doubt.   
"My God, don't you think I know that you son of a billion bitches! We have to escape right away, we cannot be found here!"

I found a little sign, one of those upside-down V shapes people put their name on, next to the telephone. It said CATHCART TOWERS INN, and I waved it at my attorney threateningly. That seemed to get the message through to him, but we were not yet prepared for the world and so we hunted through our supplies for the appropriate weaponry to gird our loins.

In order to achieve the state of mentality necessary to pass ourselves as human beings capable of fulfilling the established hotel\guest obligations we fortunately carried a quart bottle of amyl-nitrate which we inhaled from repeatedly. The amyl would get us on our feet and out of the godawful room but no more then that- the high was intense but short-lived. For longer term protection my attorney suggested, and I agreed, an tab of lysergic acid straight away and one more in no less then fifteen minutes. That would take a little time to get working but the hit would sustain us fully in the day ahead. We dressed as well as we were able and made our way out. I found myself entirely incapable of normal locomotion, and had to proceed bent over at the waist, at a fully ninety-degree angle. My cigarette pointed the way and I just had to put up with it, hoping my spine would get with the program in its own time.

The elevator down was a nightmare all of its own. The bottle of amyl was inhaled from liberally all the way, and the motion of the elevator threatened to push my brain up, up and out of my skull. Fortunately this also had the effect of straightening me upright again and so I knew my attorney was serving me well.

By the time we had shuffled intensely to the front desk I knew that the carpets were going to give me trouble. The terrifying patterns had set off the acid before I was fully prepared for what was to come, that meant only that the rate of time passing had changed, allowing the drug to hit me all the faster, or else that we had taken half an hour to traverse twenty feet from the elevator. By the time I pulled myself up to the counter the man behind the desk had transformed into some kind of a demon. I could tell this from the nubby candy-corn horns protruding from his mass of hair, and I stared for a moment to better understand the habits of this creature. I passed the time by looking through the guest register and asking for a pen repeatedly, rejecting each implement as it was passed to me in turn. I noticed that the name of the hotel had changed, and all the stationary was now headed IN KARKATS TOWER.

The clerk was waiting for me to speak, I knew that this was his way of trapping me the clever bastard! I passed the time conversing with him, working a vein of dense symbolism into my meanings in order to throw him off the scent. I was panicking, I realised it, and suddenly all that amyl wasn't helping. I span around to find my attorney and clung to him for support. He knew I must not be seen in this state and dutifully guided me away, I feigned a limp to complete the illusion that I was a slightly confused man of great means.

"We have to get out of here!" I exclaimed, "look at that beautiful monstrosity, there's not any chance we can afford this hotel!" There I said it, we were committed. We would escape this nightmare forthwith, but my attorney held me back, whispering his advice carefully to avoid the devils.   
"We can't just cut and run man, they'd be on to us before we hit the street. These fancy places know how to deal with people who sleep and flee, they have strange and terrible ways. They'd be all over us dude."   
"By God you're right! What do you suggest?"   
"Well speaking as your attorney, I feel that we should immediately hit the hotel casino for free drinks in order to settle the situation. Then we will be in a calmer state of mind to come up with a plan."   
"You've done all this before. Don't lie to me Goddamn you, I can see through your soul!"

He rubbed my chest and adopted a conspiratorial tone, I knew that as an attorney of some standing his advice would be invaluable, and it helped him to think when he could enjoy intimate touching.

"It's simple. We approach this thing in stages, and the first thing to do is provide the impression that we have every intention of enjoying the services of this fine establishment for some time to come, so that when we do depart for a little fresh air nothing seems unusual."   
"You are a slick bastard, you apply oil to yourself while I sleep!"   
"It's just math, man. That's all it is. Now relax and let me direct you into the casino floor, where we will find drinks plentiful."   
"What about all the Goddamn trolls everywhere?" He had no answer to that one, perhaps I had phrased the question clumsily. There was no time to continue- we had arrived at the craps table through some mysterious legal alchemy of my esteemed colleague.

I wanted to ask how we had come to be in this terrifying place. I had no recollection of anything after we had begun with the red screamers three nights previously. I sensed a lump in the pocket of my pants that could only possibly be an eyedropper bottle full of adrenochrome. I knew it by the weight it exerted on me, and I prayed to whatever twisted heathen gods might be nearby that I had not consumed any of that terrifying substance. My attorney was occupied with the business of procuring dice from the croupier, a vast grey female with one wrong eye who looked at me like a Mexican staring spider. I banged my fists on the craps table and demanded respect, for I was a doctor of journalism no less.

What appalling kinks of fate had deposited me IN KARKATS TOWER, I had no idea. I could only recall some vague hints, I saw streetlights burning against the velvet sky of the desert and I heard the sound of horses in the far distance. I concluded that we had endured some Mohammedian night-flight to Vegas. But why? In search of what? Revelation, or redemption- neither were to be found anywhere nearby, something had gone terribly wrong.

The dice were loaded, I knew that the plastic tetrahedrons in my sweating palm could not possibly be correct, but the croupier was screaming- screaming I tell you- for me to roll. I closed my eyes and hurled them as hard as I could. I heard someone cry out and a sound of glass smashing. My attorney hurried me away from the table and the bastard wouldn't even tell me what I had won.

I felt an inescapable sense of loss, knowing that with the possible exception of my attorney none of the assembled trolls and monsters could approach my singular plateau of understanding. My attorney was getting tense, I knew it, there could be no other explanation for his frantic searching. At first I just thought he was mad with grief at the manner in which I had been treated but this was not the case, he had seen hotel security approaching us from across the hall.

There were two of them, a tall one with his hat forked carefully between his upward pointing horns, his face made up like some grotesque mockery of a clown just to taunt me personally. The other was as wide as a door and expressionless like some kind of an attorney behind sunglasses. All hope would soon be lost as they laid hands on us, how could they! This was interfering with a business relationship between an attorney and his client, the constitution was writ on water that this should come to pass! In a sudden flash of insight I stabbed my hand into my pocket and seized on the bottle of adrenochrome, twisting off the screwcap with my thumb. I screeched like a wounded child to confuse them and then splashed the clear fluid in their faces. Our only hope was to dose the fuckers and run for it.

The adrenochrome worked immediately on them both, according to reliable sources the liquid can only be successfully harvested from a living human pineal gland, and from my own experiences the lurid horrorterrors that arrive immediately after making contact with the stuff are enough to bring about a social revolution within the mind. We made a break for it, I pushed over the fat croupier with a disdainful snarl and behind us the security men clung together against the dark, they frantically pawed at each other for reassurance and warmth. I knew that when the faces came, they would have no choice but to make instant and vigorous love to stave off the darkness of adrenochrome.

By then all hope of a perfect getaway was lost, we could only run for our lives. The clerk was waiting for us, the swine, and attempted to block our reasonable and forthright attempts to leave. My attorney had to hand him a writ of habeas corpus while I pled the fifth, and to ensure we were clearly understood I screamed and slapped the clerk across the face like a woman.

We knew we could never return, we did not look back. Our cherry red convertible was parked haphazardly across the road facing into the wrong direction of traffic and it had already accumulated many parking tickets through some process I do not understand. We climbed aboard and he gunned the engine hard, we tore off down the strip.

Some time later we stopped and found a flop house suitable for recuperation. I was able to bathe, and in the flickering light of a neon tube we made love like animals. I covered myself in lanolin and he wore a plastic Nixon mask to complete the effect. We went up onto the roof to seek the fires that were dimming within ourselves, and stared out over the city lights as the sun went down again. My God, how much time had gone by? How long had we stood and stared? How long had we weakened and withered beneath the sun? I had trouble getting back down to our room, but my attorney refused to help me as he had warned me about stairs.

By the time we had resolved again to leave the mask had become a permanent fixture, he insisted that this was appropriate as only Nixon could go to Vegas. We rolled off again, I stank of the lanolin but I didn't care as it helped me, and maintained a certain suppleness. We were clean by then, working with nothing but a little amphetamine and the remaining amyl, the cocaine was all gone and we were down to our last ounces of marijuana. I had never felt so pure. I remember as we left Vegas I had migrated, I was now in back of the car and next to me was a blind girl, another troll perhaps, an artist who was as good as that description implies. She nestled up against me like a shivering bird and stroked her tongue over my cheek. I thought it was just the lanolin but she insisted that she could tell everything about me from this unforgivable behaviour.

As she pulled my shirt open and began to work on my chest and belly my attorney turned on the radio, to the Rolling Stones. How those English sons of bitches had stolen so much of America, and how we had bought it all back from them! My anger lent me strength, and the girl could sense it in me and wanted it. We hit the highway back West, where it had all began for me. Out there I could return to my manifest destiny, out there I could find home, and become free, and become stuck. Out there I might even find my America again, not this distorted thing I had seen it become. Nixon was driving us now, but the fear and the loathing would not last and soon I would awaken again. To live! To Breathe! I urged Nixon on into the night and Vegas left us far behind.


End file.
